


Telephone

by OfTheNoseworthyClan



Category: Pocket Monsters SPECIAL | Pokemon Adventures, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: 2020 Specord Secret Santa, Alcohol, Christmas, Christmas Party, Gen, Humor, Post-Canon, Secret Santa, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-01-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28675653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OfTheNoseworthyClan/pseuds/OfTheNoseworthyClan
Summary: Anxious and out of gift ideas for his Secret Santa recipient, Wally asks some friends for a good suggestion. However, this innocent request might unexpectedly lead down a rabbit hole of mistakes and misunderstandings…This fic contains a lot of custom formatting, so if you can,please view this fic through the desktop site, and make sure the Creator's Style box in the top-right of the page is set to "Show"! Otherwise, the formatting won't appear in the intended way.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 15
Collections: 2020 Specord Secret Santa





	Telephone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [softoriginals](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softoriginals/gifts).



“Green Oak”

  


In all honesty, Wally wished the name inside his envelope belonged to someone he knew a little better.

―But the moment he opened the lazily sealed envelope and saw that name, scrawled in Gold’s messy, casual handwriting, he knew he shouldn’t have gotten his hopes up so high.

  


Of course, he wasn’t going to complain about the result or anything; it was a wonder he was even invited to the party in the first place ― and looking on the bright side, he recognised the name he was given a little bit, at the very least.

He knew the face behind that name as well ― A well-known Gym Leader in the Kanto Region, as well as the runner-up in that League tournament Red had won way back when…

and he was Red's former rival, too, wasn't he?

Red and Blue probably mentioned something like that when they briefly met in Hoenn, that must've been how Wally got that into his head.

  
  
  


That being said…  
Wally had

  


no clue

  


what Green was even like.

What were his tastes? Would he care about what he received? How could Wally even gauge what he would want?

  


It’s okay, I’ll have lots of time to think about it,  
he assured himself.  
I’ll figure something out!

  
  
  


a  
week  
passed

  


and Wally still had no idea  
about what to give Green.

  


There certainly wasn’t a lot of time to think about it anymore.

  


Over the past seven days Wally had thought about ideas in his head non-stop. He had researched articles online about Green nearly as much as a stalker would.

Normally, Wally wouldn’t want to pry into things as much as he was now, but he was anxiously worried he might seem unprepared ― or worse, Green wouldn’t like what he gave him.

  


At this point, he couldn’t afford to do this on his own. Asking for a favour wouldn’t bother anyone, right?

  


Wally grabbed the telephone on the wall of his house.  
_I just have to “phone a friend”!_

  


“…heh.”

  


Wally gave the joke he thought up a pity-chuckle under his breath.

just to relieve the anxiety in the pit of his stomach.

  
  
  


After clumsily entering the wrong number twice, he waited on the line for the voice on the other side, tapping his toes on the floor of his room in time with the rhythm of the tone.

  


One ring.

  


Two rings.

  
  


_Please pick up…_

  
  


Three rings―

“Hello~! Ruby speaking?”

  


Wally’s sigh of relief reached Ruby’s end of the line as a loud wave of static.

“ACK―”

“Oh! I’m sorry! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to―”

Wally jumped straight to apologizing, out of habit.  
“It’s fine, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. How are things, Wally?” “Oh, um… I-I’m doing well,”

(a white lie,

  


which Ruby noticed easily)

“You know, it’s really easy to see when you’re hiding something. Just tell me.”

  


(A beat passed.)  
_…Am I really that predictable?_  
“Well, it’s about the Secret Santa party we were invited to― I’m just― I-I’m not complaining― it’s a huge honour to be invited, b-but I’m―”

“―Okay, stop―”  
Ruby was so familiar with Wally’s textbook apprehension  
that he had a formula to deal with it.

  


“―deep breath.”

Wally made sure to move the phone away from his mouth this time

“Okay. Now. Carry on…?”

“Right, yeah…  
  
“I was just wondering, um, if you had any idea what Green would like as a gift? Do you know him well?”  
  
The thought,

_He thought that would sound  
like he was complaining?_

crossed Ruby’s mind,  
but he didn’t voice it.

  


“Well, I don’t really know what Green would enjoy, but I guess I could ask around for you if I have the time―”  
“T-Thank you so much! It would be such a big help!” Wally replied immediately, an innocently frank tone of relief coated on every word he spoke.

  


_That’s one less thing to worry about,_ Wally thought.

  
  
  
  


_…Well, that’s one more thing to worry about,_ Ruby thought  
as he set down the phone.  
  
He didn’t mind the extra workload, of course.  
Just figuring out a few things that Green might like shouldn’t take too much effort. However, that would also take away from the time he was spending on his own ideas.

“Beauty is in a job well done”  
and all, but… what about his own gift?

  
_Just pass it off to someone else,_ he decided. He knew himself too well not to realise he’d only focus on this more than he needed to, and end up neglecting his own gift idea.  
Luckily, he had a scapegoat to pin the job on―  
who was hopefully in the other room, assuming he hadn’t gone off somewhere.  
  
“Hey, Em!”  
  
A second of dead air passed before a muffled voice answered him from the other side of the drywall:  
  
“What?!”  
  
A blunt response, as usual.  
“You still keep in touch with Gold, right?”  
  
“HUH―?!”  
  
Ruby vented his annoyances with a gritty sigh  
as he rose to his feet  
and paced determinedly to the neighbouring room.

“I _said…_ ” he repeated, scanning the room for Emerald’s whereabouts, “…You still keep in touch with Gold, don’t you?”

  
His eyes landed on Emerald, laying face-down on the couch,

propping his upper body on his elbows, and swinging his legs back and forth in the air behind him.

He had a bag of chips in his hand and was shoveling some into his mouth sloppily as he replied.

“Mhm. Yeh, I gepth.”  
  


Ruby pretended not to be disgusted.  
“Could you ask him if he knows something Green would like as a gift?”

“Wait, you got _Green_?”

“Oh, it’s not for me. Wally wanted a favour.”  
“Oh. Okay,” Emerald threw another chip into his mouth, “Thurr, iph I remmbhur.”  
  
_Ech._ “Great, thanks.”  
  
  
  
  


Compared to the two before him, Emerald really didn’t put much thought into passing on the favour.  
  
Sitting down at his PC that evening, he opened a browser and sent Gold a quick e-mail.  
  
‘hey pisshead ask what green wants for your crappy party’  
  
Five minutes later, he got a response.  
  
‘dope’  
  
_Simple as that,_ he thought to himself.  
  
  
  
  


“Ugh. Great, yet another thing to keep track of.”

Clearly,

Gold wasn’t taking this well.

“I knew this stupid party was a bad idea! Now everyone’s gonna hit me up asking for my advice at this rate!  
  
I mean… I don’t blame them, I do know a lot…  
  


but not anything about gifts and stuff! You should’ve stopped me from going through with this, guys…”

Ataro and Togetaro, sitting on the opposite end of Gold’s bed,  
both threw him an expression that could only be interpreted to mean  
_Oh, it’s our fault, is it?_

  
“What’s that look for? Did I say something?”  
The message was lost on Gold.  
  
  
  
  


The  
following day,  
  
“Hey, twin-tail girl!”  
  


Wally’s favour was passed down into Crystal’s hands.

  
“I swear― why can’t you just say people’s names, Gold…” Crys, hard at work in Professor Oak’s lab, didn’t bother to look up from the file folder she was combing through as she muttered her annoyances under her breath. There was only one possible suspect that would dub her “twin-tail girl”.  
  
“Oh c’mon, it’s an endearing trait of mine, ain’t it? Chicks dig it, I can tell~!”  
“I highly doubt that.”  
“Aw, how rude… how could you be so mean to lil’ ol’ me?” Gold put on his best pair of puppy-dog eyes, but Crystal was still too absorbed in her work to give his act the time of day.  
Her lack of acknowledgement kept him briefly trapped in the pose, and, for a short moment, the laboratory was filled with nothing but the white noise of the ceiling fan.  
  
…  
  
“―Anyway!” Then Gold broke the silence. “I have an itty-bitty favour to ask of you!”  
  
“Mhm…?” Crys was only half-focused, still trying to get an ounce of work accomplished despite the minor distraction.

Then Gold’s sentence registered in her head.  
_Uh oh._ Knowing Gold, Crystal feared the worst.

  
“…And that would be…?”

“D’ya think you could ask the old geezer what his grandson would want as a gift? Y’know, for that annual party I’m hosting? You know the one!”

  
…  
  
_…Oh._  
That wasn’t so bad after all.  
  
A surge of relief washed over Crystal.  
Gold noticed her shoulders suddenly loosen up.  
“Why, sure, I could do that! I’ll make sure to let him know once he gets back from recording DJ Mary’s show this afternoon.”  
  
“Sweet, thanks! Well, ciao, lab coat girl!”  
  
  
He just couldn’t leave on a high note, could he?  
  
  
  
  


“Oh! By the way, Professor!” Crystal’s voice echoed from the other side of the lab.  
  
“Yes? What is it, Crystal?”

“Gold came in here earlier and― urmph!”  
―She set down a box of empty Poké Balls on a shelf midway through her sentence―  
“―he asked if you knew anything Green might like for a gift!”

  
“Well,”

Oak exclaimed  
as he swiveled his desk chair around to face his employee,

“that’s certainly rare for someone like Gold! What’s the occasion?”  
  
“He’s throwing a Secret Santa party in a few weeks, and I think that’s who he ended up with.”

“I see!

Well, an old coot like me is probably a bit out of touch with his tastes, but I could ask Daisy for some advice!”

  
“Really? That’d be a great help! Thanks so much!”  
Crystal responded with an honest beaming smile, polite as usual.  
  
“Not a problem! It’s the least I could do to pay back all the work you do for me at the lab!”  
  
  


“…Well, a raise could help, too…”

  


“I suppose that’s true, too! Ha-ha…”  
…Oak sensed a hint of crossness.

  
  
  
  


“…By the way, Daisy – one last thing before you hang up?”  
“Yes, Grandpa? What is it?”  
“Crystal wanted to ask if you knew something Green would like to get as a gift…”

“Really? What’s the occasion?” Daisy asked, puzzled.

“Hmm… What was it again? Oh, that’s right!  
I believe Gold was throwing a holiday party, and he has to find a gift to give Green for it, to my knowledge.”  
  
“Oh, okay! I’ll see if there’s anything he’d like!”  
  
“All right, then! Have a good day, now, Daisy!”  
“Bye, Grandpa! Love you!”  
  
  
  
  


Daisy set down the phone,  
producing a metallic

“clack”  
as it was positioned into its mount.

  
_This should be easy…_ she considered. She knew Green like the back of her hand.  
  
―But  
if she asked him about it, he’d probably catch onto her.

So it would probably be best to infer.

  
―And  
it would be a good idea to think about whether Gold could even be able to find whatever gift she might come up with,

all the way over in Johto.

  
―And  
not only that, would it seem like a gift that Gold could come up with?

What was Gold like, anyway? All of Grandpa’s stories made him out to be quite the prankster…  
And the few times she had met him, well…

  
It didn’t take long to decide on one of those “EXP Shares” she had been seeing trainers use often–  
Green spent most of his time training, so a present that might help him with it would clearly be a good idea.  
  
Daisy had read somewhere that EXP Shares, at least the kind that most people own, were originally invented in Johto, so Gold shouldn’t have too much trouble finding one to buy.  
Even if it didn’t seem like something Gold might think of, he could still find a way to present it interestingly, right?  
  
With her idea in mind, she decided to sleep on it, rather than calling Grandpa back immediately.  
  


There was no rush,  
and she needed a rest.

  
  
  
  


The next day, Daisy made true to her word.  
“…so I think a good present would have to be one of those EXP Shares.”

“Pardon?”

“An EXP Share!”

“Oh, of course!

Sorry about that, Daisy. I couldn’t quite hear you well! This old coot is getting faultier by the minute!”

Oak’s hearty chuckling cut through the awkward moment before the two moved on to the next topic.  
  
  
  
  


“―Ah! You’re back!”

Oak called out to Crystal as she returned from her lunch break.

  
“Hello, Professor! Did anything happen while I was out?”

“Nothing in the lab, but I do have some good news ― Daisy got back to me on that favour you needed!”

“That’s great! What did she suggest?”  
  
“I believe it was some streetwear.”  
  
  


(The first sign of disaster.)

  
  
…  
  
The moment Crys got her answer,

a

shiver went

down

her

spine.

  


She knew Gold well.  
Asking for something as vague as “streetwear” would be a ticking time bomb for some bizarre joke in his hands.

  
  


  1. an outfit breaking so many faux pas it would be painful to even look at
  

  2. an outfit plastered head to toe with a pattern made up of roads
  

  3. a clown costume
  

  4. a box filled to the brim with crumbled chunks of asphalt
  
  
  
  
  
  



Gold’s jokes were always harmless.  
but  
since he didn’t know Green well,  
he’d only leave a bad impression of himself.  
  


―Crys didn’t want him to embarrass himself like that.  
As much as he got on her nerves sometimes,  
she still didn’t want him to be put in any awkward spots,

  


obviously.

  
  
So, the best plan should be to narrow the term “streetwear” down, so Gold had no loopholes to work with.  
  
  
How about a coat?  
_Perfect._  
  
  
…  
  
“Okay, then! Thanks for the help, Professor!”  
  
  
  
  


When Gold came back to the lab looking for an answer, Crys should’ve expected it would be a loud entrance.  
“Attention, everyone! The prodigal son has returned!”  
Instead, she nearly fell out of her chair from the surprise.  
  
  
All Gold heard from the front entrance was

a short, yet shrill, “ACK―!”  
reverberating from the back of the building.

  


…followed by a “Goddammit, Gold!”  
It was a good enough answer for him.

  


“I’ve got plans, so I can’t stay long, but did you come up with anything for Green?!” he shouted into Crystal’s previously quiet working space, his voice ricocheting off the floor tiles into the room’s far corners where she presumably sat.

  
There was barely audible grumbling,

followed by what Gold interpreted as, “Get him a boat.”

  
  


(A second mistake.)

  
  
“Okay, thanks, adios, ta-ta, et cetera!”  
With the slam of the door echoing behind him, he dashed off as quickly as he came in.  
  
It took him a few seconds to realise,

_…That’s kind of an expensive gift to ask for, huh?_

  
  
but at that point

he’d already sprinted too far away from the lab

for it to be worth it

to run back and check.

  
  
  
  


“Whatever, it’ll be fine…” Gold reassured himself as he sat down at his PC later that same evening,

“Not my problem, anyway.”

  
He let out a wide-mouthed yawn and adjusted the collar of his pyjamas,  
then leaned in toward the monitor,  
which was already showing an open e-mail window.  
  
‘yo bitch get green a boot’  
  
Send.  
  
  
…Oops.  
  
  


(A third.)

  
  
Gold nearly sent another e-mail to correct himself, but he decided not to.  
_…Whatever, that’s way easier to buy,_  
he thought as he swiveled his chair around  
and lazily tossed his weary body onto his bed,  
face-first.  
  
He was already drifting off,  
even before Emerald sent him a reply within the next three minutes,  
  
‘ok’  
  
then another,  
  
‘weird way to say that lol’  
  
then one more:  
  
‘ho’  
  
  
  
  


Emerald stuck his head out of his room into the hallway,  
peering  
through the corridor,  
into the living room,  
past the living room,  
at the door to Ruby’s bedroom,  
where Ruby was probably holed up.  
  
“Hey!” he barked.  
  
Silence.  
  
  
He took a deep breath.  
  
“HEY!”  
  


“…Yeah? What is it?”

  


The distance between them swallowed most of the sound either of them could produce, as usual.

  
Unaffected,  
and perhaps lazily,

Emerald passed along Gold’s message.

  
“Green wants a pair of boots!”  
  
  
“…Pardon?!”  
  
“Ugh―

I _SAID_ , GREEN WANTS SOME BOOTS―!”

  
  


“Okay!”

  


Finally, with that, it was out of Emerald’s hands.

  
  
  
  


“I _SAID_ , GREEN WANTS A FLUTE―!”  
  
_That’s what he said, right?_  
  
  


(How many times, now?)

  
  
Well, Ruby wasn’t doing anything at the moment, so he might as well send Wally a call right away.  
  
_Where’s that stupid phone?_  
It was halfway across the room.  
_Ugh._  
  
Ruby swore under his breath about how he didn’t use the prize money from one of his contests to buy a Xtransceiver that one time.  
Following a long stretch, he paced over to the landline.  
  
One ring.  
  
“…Hello?”  
“Hi, Wally, it’s Ruby.”

“Oh! Hi, Ruby! How are you?”

“Fine, thanks. You?”

“Um… I’m doing okay!”

Truthfully, he was pretty stressed.

“That’s good to hear!”

Ruby didn’t tell Wally he picked up on that.

  
“Anyway, I heard back from some people about the Secret Santa gift!”  
“Really?! T-that’s great!”  
“Mhm! And you’d never guess what he wants in a million years:

A flute!  
You’d never expect it from someone like Green, huh?”

  


He really couldn’t.

“W-wow, that’s definitely a surprise!”

  
“Anyway, nothing to worry about now, right?  
Do you want to go look for a good one on the weekend, I don’t know… sometime Saturday afternoon? I’ll pitch in on the price if you let me pick the design!”  
  
“Y-yeah! That sounds good!”  
  
“Sweet! See you then!”  
  
  
  
  


At the party, Crys made it a point to track Gold down.  
It took a while to find him―

Gold’s house was giant.

  


On top of that, she still wasn’t very familiar with its layout, even though she had known him for such a long time.

  


(She remembered how, during the last party of his she’d attended,  
someone―

―she couldn’t remember who―

―cracked a joke about how that must have been because she suppressed her memories of Gold’s parties because of how infamously disastrous they turn out to be)

  
Eventually, she noticed him sitting down at a leather couch, in a room down the hallway from the living room.  
  
He had a beer in his hand and was nonchalantly waving it around above his head ― which Crys knew was a mistake just waiting to happen, judging from the carpet underneath his feet.  
As she got closer, though, she realised it wasn’t even open. She also noticed Emerald, who had been previously hidden behind Gold’s comparatively massive figure. The two of them were in mid-conversation.  
  


“Seriously, what’s your deal?! Just pass me the can!”

  


“Sorry bro, none for the minors this year,” Gold replied with an aloof shrug of his shoulders.

  


“Ugh, I’m legal age, you dick!”

  


“I dub thee an honorary minor.”  
(he said this in the best posh royal accent he could manage)  
“We both know you couldn’t hold your liquor last year!”

  


“Who ca―res! Just― gimme the―”  
“How about I let you have some if you can reach it, _Sir Lightweight~_!”

(the posh accent again)

  
Gold’s playful insult only fueled Emerald’s motivation to grab the can.

“Ugh, come _on_ , you prick―”

  
“Seriously, give it up, man!  
If I let you have this, you _know_ Crys is gonna kill me―”  
“Who’s killing who?”  
“―EEP!  
…H-hey~, How’s it hangin’, homegirl?”  
  
Gold turned around toward Crystal at a fearfully slow pace,  
trying to save face as he met the satisfied expression she was now proudly wearing.  
  
“Okay so far, but knowing your parties’ reputations, who knows how long that’ll last. Gimme that.” She snatched the can from Gold’s hands and cracked it open before Gold could finish saying “Hey―!”

“Wow… bold this year, aren’t we?”

  
“Oh, shut up! I’m not here for that!”  
  
Crystal seemed a bit tipsy already,  
so Gold guessed she was lying about that.  
(He didn’t say that out loud.)  
  
“I just wanted to ask you about Green’s gift.  
You didn’t screw around with it, right? Be honest with me here,” she demanded.  
  


There was a pause.

  
“Huh?”

“What― What do you _mean_ , ‘huh’? You were the one asking me!”

  


Another.

  
Then,  
Gold turned to Emerald, who looked back, his face bunched up to stifle laughter.  
  
“…OH! I wasn’t paired with Green, I dunno who was―”

“―It was Wally―”

“Oh, it was Wally.”

  
Crystal let out a long sigh, disappointed in herself.  
“You mean I didn’t have to worry about narrowing it down to a coat at all? These last few weeks took years off my life, and it was for nothing…”  
  
  


“…Oh… it was a _coat_ …”

  
  


…

  
  


“…What… What did you… _think_ I said, Gold…?”

  


With a look of both shame and amusement,  
he replied,

  


“I thought you said boat.”

  


“You― How does that even make sense?!”

  


“Wait, hold on!”  
Emerald interjected,  
“You told me _boots_! Why did you―”

“Oh, that! It was a typo, but I didn’t correct myself ‘cause that’d be cheaper to buy, y’know?”

  
  
Hearing Gold say that made Crys drop her jaw agape, dumbfounded  
and Emerald throw his head back in a fit of wild laughter.  
  


“Wha―t?! Aw, come on, guys, it’s not that bad! Listen, at least he still ended up with some kind of clothing in the end, right? Right??”

  
  
The two of them weren’t even listening anymore.  
  
“Hee-hee―h-hey, Ruby! Get over h-here―tchhyaaa-hahaaah―!”

Emerald called Ruby,  
who had just passed by the doorway, drink in hand,

into the room  
between breaths.

  
“…Should I even ask?” he wondered aloud to the trio.  
“Oh my― oh my God okay, so,” Emerald desperately tried to maintain composure,  
“These two _morons_ ―”

(he pointed to the others in the room:  
Crystal with her forehead resting in her free hand,

a look of extreme disbelief on her face,

and Gold next to her, trying to avoid eye contact,

his face an intense red ― which was certainly rare for him)

  


“These absolute fools ― wait, lemme― lemme take a step back―heeheehe-hold on, hold on, so, y-y’know the present you asked about, for―heeheeheaaha―f-for Wally, right??”

  
  
  
  
“Like, the flute?”  
  
  
  
  
There was  
  
a long stretch of silence  
  
where all three of them  
  
looked directly  
  
at Ruby  
  
with eyes  
  
that were so wide  
  
he thought  
  
they would pop out  
  
of their sockets  
  
  
And then Emerald broke that silence with laughter twice as loud as before.  
“YOU DID _NOT_ ― I SAID BOOTS, RUBY, YOU―”  
  


“…Oh… no…”  
“OH MY GOD, PFFTHHA-HAHAHA-HAHHH―”

  
“Wait, wait, guys, listen to me!”  
Ruby interrupted the mess of a scene unfolding between the four of them.

“Wally just split off from me in the hallway to give Green his gift, th-there’s still time to explain the mix-up!”

  
“G-good idea, Ruby!”  
“Screw that, I wanna watch the carnage!”  
“Not gonna lie, I ditto Emerald on this one.”  
  
Regardless of motive, the four of them sprinted out the door, following Ruby’s lead.  
Upon rounding the corner, however, they spotted Wally, mid-conversation with Green, already about to pass along the misunderstood gift.  
  
“Damn it, we’re too late!”

“I’d call this ‘just in time’, actually,” Emerald corrected Ruby,  
dragging him and the other two members of the crowd backwards  
where the four of them positioned themselves peeking around the corner.  
drawing looks from some of the younger Dexholders who were nestled in a circle nearby.  
One of them even had a beer in hand, but at this point, nobody cared enough to look away from Wally and Green right now. Witnessing this car-wreck of a gift-giving was much more important than keeping the kids at the party sober.

  
  
“…A-Anyway, I, uhm… I’m the one who was supposed to get you a gift for the Secret Santa thingy, right? So, uh… h-here!”  
  
The four voyeurs watched in anticipation as Wally presented Green a black rectangular box, sealed with two glossy metal latches.

As Green took it politely (and confusedly) from Wally’s anxious hands.

As he flipped open the clasps.

As he lifted the lid.

  
“Strange, I don’t know how to play one of these.”  
  
  
  
  


…was what they expected him to say.  
Instead,

  
  


“Oh, this is so nice! I’ve always wanted to learn an instrument.  
Seriously, how did you find out? Thank you, really.”

  
  
“…What?”  
  
“W…What the hell?!”  
  
“You’re kidding me.”  
  
“HUH?!”  
  
  
“Really?” Wally exclaimed, relieved. “I don’t know how to read sheet music or anything, but I sort of know how to make notes right! There’s a town over in Hoenn where they’re made, and I picked up how to do it right while I lived there for a few months!”  
  
“That would be really nice of you. Can you help teach me here, if you have time?”  
  
“S-sure! Uhm, so the first thing you―”  
“―Hold on for a second. I think it would be best to wash out the mouthpiece before you start. Let’s not rush into things.”

“O-oh! r-right, I should’ve thought a-about that… heheh…”  
Wally’s innocent enthusiasm had been lost again; it was quickly replaced  
by an agitated tone of embarrassment in his voice.  
His eyes darted between spots on the floor, as if they were scanning it for the cause of his minor mistake.

  


And, just as fast as his nervousness had grown,

it was shattered,  
like a thin sheet of ice in a puddle,

by Green placing his hand on Wally’s head reassuringly.

  


“Hey, uh… you okay? Don’t worry about it, it’s really not that big of a deal…”

  


“…Right, sorry… it-it’s a bad habit…”  
Wally returned Green’s quizzical expression with a sheepish smile

  


“Mm,” Green acknowledged coolly with a mumble,

slipping back into his detached aura.

“Well, in any case, it would be best to find a sink to wash the mouthpiece in, don’t you agree?”  
“R-right!”  
“Follow me, then. I think I remember where Gold’s kitchen might be, but who can tell with this huge place, anyway?

…Seriously, has that guy ever heard of the phrase, ‘less is more’?”

  
  
The pair’s conversation kept going strong as Green led the way out of the large living room.  
If Gold had heard the remark made against him, he likely would have shot back (at no one in particular).

But, by now, the four onlookers had long since stopped paying attention.  
They were too busy

standing dumbfounded,  
frozen in place

from the scene they had just watched unfold.

  
For what must have lasted until a full minute past Green and Wally’s exit, their stalkers all exchanged a variety of stuttering, broken attempts at a proper reaction.  
  
  


“I… seriously can’t believe that just―”  
“What are the odds of…?”  
“I… wha…”

…et cetera.

  
  
Recovering from his shock first, Gold chimed in.  
“…Well, gang, I think the most important lesson to be learned here is: ‘all’s well that ends well’, don’t you think? Sure, we had some trips along the way, but― OW!”  
  
He was interrupted by a sudden jolt of pain,

delivered swiftly from Crys chucking her newly empty beer can at his forehead.

She must have chugged it at some point in the confusion.  
In one go.  
…Who could blame her?  
  
“Oh, shush!  
This was your fault in the first place, don’t you try worming your way out!”

“ _ME_?! You were to blame too, y’know!”  
“And just _how_ does my mistake even measure up to yours, you dolt?!”

  
  


They kept on arguing, forgetting about Ruby and Emerald entirely.  
The two of them stood next to each other, squirming for some way to break the ice.

  
  


“So, uh, what the hell now?”  
“…You wanna go see what Wally and Green got up to?”

  
  


“Sure, I guess. Beats watching this mess.”

  


“Cool.”

  
  


And so, another pair left the room,  
in search  
of the two they had been previously tailing

  
  


leaving the chaotic fallout  
of that comedy of errors they had created  
behind them  
as they wandered away into another area of the house.

  
  


The only things they brought with them as they left

were the memories

  


from yet another one of Gold’s unhinged parties

  
  
  
  


which would surely be recounted with laughter  
the very next year

  
  
  
  


just the same as all those other nostalgic stories

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


from so many years prior.

**Author's Note:**

> This was a project I wrote for a Secret Santa event on the [PokéSpe Discord server](https://discord.gg/NZgtkKtctB). The writers who took part in the event were assigned both a character and another writer, then had to write a fic based around their character giving a Secret Santa gift to their designated writer's character.  
> The character I was given was Wally, and my recipient was [softoriginals](https://archiveofourown.org/users/softoriginals/profile), who was assigned Green.  
>   
> This event was such a blast to take part in that I went a fair bit past the word limit, so I had to narrow it down a lot. The fic posted above is the uncut version.  
> I really put a ton of effort into this one, and I'm super satisfied with how it turned out! Practicing writing such a huge amount of characters is really fulfilling, even if I still need to get the hang of some of their personalities.  
>   
> A huge shoutout to everyone who participated in this event, to the moderators who put so much effort into hosting it, and to Specord in general! I don't know where I'd be in the fandom without a community of such kind and friendly people! Here's to more events like this one! Love you all!


End file.
